ZIM Day 57

After about twenty minutes of walking, we came to the truck with the bomb. The dead followed me and I had them gather around the truck. There were thousands of them. I must have called all of the dead in the city. All that were left and able to walk stood there in front of me.

“Do you know how to disarm the bomb?”

Rory looked up, “No, I just drive the truck and kill the living dead. Never had Nuclear Bombs 101.”

“Well hopefully we can convince them to stop. You think they’ll trust a guy with two swords and an army of corpses?”

“Yeah, good luck with that one.”I could see them coming in the distance. I had the dead line up between them and the bomb. I knew that there would be no talking to them. Either we’d stop them or die trying. If the bomb went off, there’d be millions of radioactive dead roaming the country. I wouldn’t even be around to control them. There’d be no chance of saving anybody.

I drew my swords and looked around. Stephanie looked sick, Rory was scared shitless, and Ben, Steffanie, and Jeff stood next to us in silence. It was really funny to see Ben with that giant axe. The dead stayed at attention, waiting for my command. I was surprisingly excited. I wasn’t worried about the impending battle. I wasn’t worried about dying. I was just excited to see what I could do with the dead against the living. I didn’t want to see anybody else die, but we didn’t have much of a choice if they didn’t listen to me.

The living approached, but stopped about forty yards out when they saw that the dead weren’t moving.

I shouted, “We’re alive over here! You can’t set off the bomb! It’ll just make the dead stronger! Go home!”

Nothing happened. They just stood there. An army of living facing an army of dead. The living stood there, armed and ready to fight. Yet no one was moving. I looked over at Rory, he was trembling. Stephanie had her rifle pointed at the living, ready to fire. The dead stood there at full attention.

No one spoke from the other side. I’m sure they didn’t know what to think about an army of corpses with a spokesman. I looked at the other two.

“Ready?”

The dead lifted their weapons and faced the living.

“This is your last chance! Go home! We don’t want to kill anybody!”

I stared in silence at the other side. The living didn’t move. Then a shot rang out. Someone had fired. Then more followed. They were firing into the crowd of dead.